Locally Famous

We decided to vote early today and headed out to a community center just up the hill from us. There was a bit of a line, but the day was beautiful, quintessentially October, golden sun, flaming leaves, luminous sky, and it was a pleasure to wait. A candidate for county board chatted us up as we stood. "I'm here for questions, or complaints, or--" he paused.

"Or votes?" I teased him. "You have ours." 

"Thank you!" he laughed and moved on down the line. 

There were several volunteers from the local Democrats, and at the top of the hour they had a mini-shift change. One young man made his way to the card table they had set up as a command center. He walked steadily on forearm crutches and said introduced himself in a loud voice. It was a name recognized from the sixth grade class 15 years ago. I turned to look at more carefully, and sure enough I could just make out the 11-year-old boy in the thin and rangy man with shaggy blond hair: the blue eyes were the same. I went back to say hello, removing my sunglasses and mask so that he might recognize me, too. 

In sixth grade, he was on our team, but not in my English class. He was in our school's functional life skills program, but he was full of personality and known to all. He didn't have many conversational filters back then, and I found the same was still pretty true. 

"How have you been?" I asked.

"Physically?" he replied, and waved his crutches at me. "I have these."

"I'm sorry that happened to you," I told him.

"That's muscular dystrophy," he shrugged.

"How's your mom?" I asked.

"She has a blood clot in her leg!" he reported. "From running."

"Well, at least she's staying active," I said, a little unsure where to take the conversation next.

"I think it's your turn to go in," he nodded to the door where Heidi was holding my place.

"I'm going to tell your teachers I saw you," I said. "They're going to be a little jealous."

"I know," he answered. "They liked me."

If I Know You

Lately Heidi has had a bee in her bonnet, or perhaps more seasonal and precise, a bat in her belfry, about her Halloween costume. This year she plans to go as Maleficent, the evil queen from Sleeping Beauty, and Lucy and the cats are going to dress as her bat minions. So yesterday as soon as our conferences were over we headed to Spirit Halloween where we found her costume, and subsequently ordered some bat wings for our pets. 

She was so excited that she tried it on this morning to preview the look. After the two of us thoroughly discussed the headpiece (cool), and cape-caftan gown (also kind of cool), and what her make up would be like, she decided to go show her friend down the way.

"You're just going to walk around the neighborhood dressed like Maleficent?" I asked. 

"Yep!" she answered cheerfully and out the door she went. 

I could hear though the kitchen window when she ran into our next door neighbor. "You look amazing!" she said, “so elegant and evil!” and then they proceeded to discuss the make up plan again.

"What about a staff?" our neighbor asked. "There's something very empowering about carrying a staff."

We had actually debated the staff situation at length, and Heidi finally decided against one because it would get in the way when she was walking Lucy.

"Well you look very elegant, and comfortable, too," our neighbor continued. "I love a caftan!"

Just then another neighbor happened by. "Why are you dressed up?" she asked.

"Who's dressed up?" the first neighbor asked and the three of them were still cracking up when yet another neighbor came upon the scene. 

"I have come to receive my punishment," she bowed to Heidi.

"Just stay away from spinning wheels," the other neighbor advised. 

A little while later Heidi came back inside. "It's a hit!" she reported.

I would say so.

Why Do They Have to Be So Good?

I confess that, despite the many years of experience I have with it, I often dread conference day. I have more than a little social anxiety about spending the day with a bunch of people I don't know, even for a good cause.

Things got a little better when we moved to student-led conferences: like so many things about middle school, the novelty of that model carries the day with sixth grade students and their parents alike. And it is true that once I shift into teacher-gear, the meetings themselves go quite well, but I am always happy when they are over.

As I am this afternoon, but I was reminded many times throughout the course of the day why we do conferences. For example, there was the student who said at least 10 times as many words today as I have heard her say all year. "She's not quiet at home!" her mother told me through the Thai language interpreter who was dialed in through the mobile phone I held close to the screen. I also learned that one of my students speaks Russian with his mother, another has 2 older brothers also at our school, and still another who is doing phenomenally academically doesn't feel like he has many friends. 

One of the kids mentioned in passing that his teachers talk too fast and that he is too shy to ever say anything when working in a group. And another said that the most surprising thing about middle school is all the profanity scrawled in the bathrooms and dropped carelessly in the hallways between class-- to her school is sort of a Lord of the Flies meets KidTown situation, but not so bad as to tell an adult about it. 

Pretty much every student had something surprising and relevant to share, and I was reminded again and again that as much as I personally dislike them, I also must admit that they are an important tool to support our students.

Titles Tell Their Own Tales

To prepare for a mini-lesson on crafting a "terrific title" for their personal narratives, I asked my students to consider the question of if their life was a book, what it would be called. I was a little surprised by how underwhelmed most of them seemed with their stories so far, giving them titles such as 

My Very Dull Monstrous Life
Sean's Unlucky Adventures
Downhill
A Boring Life
The Worst Book Ever
An Insignificant Life, or Don't Read This
A Boring, Depressing, Lazy Child
I Am Tired
The Most Unfortunate Girl in the World (But Still a Very Interesting Person)
A Bizarre Adventure
Life is Life
My Life Story
Diana's Unlucky Adventures
My Life's a Crisis
The Standard Life of Juliet
Unexpected
The Longest, Most Boring Book in the World
Misadventures of McKenna
Daily Life of a Kid
Amazingly Normal Adventures
Just ?
Never Ending

It occurred to me as we talked that the COVID crisis, which is going on 20 months now with no real end in sight, is just a little less than 15% of their entire lives, and closer to 20% of their conscious lives. Clearly it has taken a toll.

Even so, there were a few titles that might excite a prospective reader:

Talking to My Shadow
Carnival Time
Sapnap
Welcome to Jurassic Park
The Absurd Actions of Adventure Girl
Tiny Pencil Stealer
Army Brat
The Idiot of Middle School Strikes Back
A Secret that Won't Be Told

In addition to each being more of an invitation and less of a label, there's some resiliency in them, I think. 

If it's Good Enough for Superman

I haven't worn my exercise tights for a while. Back when stay-at-home orders were issued, they evolved from gym clothes to live-in clothes, and they were a go-to through virtual learning and right up to our return to school last spring. Once we were back in the building, though, it seemed unlikely that I could get a workout in on any kind of break, and as comfortable as they were, tights seemed a little too cas, even for me. 

Of course summer is too hot for any such garment, and now we are back at school full time again, so my nice little pile of tights with their practical side pockets has gone ignored, until today. A cool snap has given our area relief from some extended summery warmth, and at first the chilly mornings followed by warmer afternoons had me scratching my head for what to wear when I got home for school, but today? The answer was clear: Girl! Pull on a pair of tights! And so I did, even if it was just to walk down the big hill to the grocery and back up again with my dinner provisions.

I'm not gonna lie-- the old tights felt a little, well, tight, and after a summer of shorts I needed to make peace with just how close they were. But I did that on the walk to the store, where I filled three bags worth of groceries before hefting them back up the hill. 

On the way home I passed a neighbor. "Where have you been?" she asked.

"The grocery store," I answered.

"The one down the hill?" she replied with surprise.

"Yeah," I shrugged. 

"Impressive!" she said.

"It's not really that far--" I started.

"Still!" she interrupted. "The groceries! That's a load. And you're looking strong!"

I considering arguing, but then I thought better of it. "Thanks!" I said with a mock flex and a squat. 

We laughed, and as I strode on up the hill, the tights were feeling pretty good.

Euphemistically

Our sixth grade team is planning a little outdoor team-building get-to-know-you event for the morning of our early-release day next week. We want to get the kids moving in the fresh, October air, so the activities we have in mind are a variety of classic playground and field-day games that groups can cooperate and compete in. 

As we brainstormed the specifics the other day, someone mentioned Red light-Green light, which is enjoying renewed popularity because of its association with Squid Game, the wildly successful Netflix series from Korea. "Except with no guns, of course" the teacher added.

Through conversational free-association the game Red Rover, Red Rover was mentioned. "I wouldn't play that in this day and age," one of the team said. "Can you imagine? The kids would totally clothesline each other and there would be a law suit for sure."

We all sighed and nodded in agreement that time's have certainly changed.

"What about Steal the Bacon?" I suggested. "That's fun." I paused and considered. "But maybe we should call it Borrow the Organic Tofu Without Permission, so we can avoid any controversy!"

Re-entry Pains

There was a soft knock and a little jiggle at the door about 20 minutes before 1st period ended today. I craned my neck to peer out the interior windows and spotted a student who has been out of school for a few weeks. 

Even though she did a good job keeping up with her assignments, she looked more than a little glum when she figured out the door situation and stepped into the room. 

"Look who's back!" I announced heartily, and the other kids looked up from their writing with slight acknowledgement. Did I mention she's been out a while? 

"Welcome back!" I said to her. "I'm really glad to see you!" 

She gave me a nod.

"Seriously!" I told her. "It's been so long you forgot how to use the door!"

And that got a little laugh. I hope tomorrow will be better.

Bravo Pomodoro

A few years ago a friend told me about the Pomodoro Technique of time management. Named after a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, the premise of the method is a 25 minute-on, five-minute off routine, with a longer break after a couple of hours. She was using it to get some research done for her dissertation, and the structure of it helped her be more productive working from home. 

I've thought of that conversation more than a few times since then, but yesterday was the first time I tried the technique out. I had a lot of student assignments to grade, and I was resistant to even starting. But, I was behind on that task, and with conferences coming up next week, I needed to update my grade book. So I set the timer and then set to work. Twenty-five minutes flew by, and although the rules of the method insist on starting and stopping on time, I found myself continuing past the alarm. The five minute break also seemed a little longer than I expected, especially when I was doing kettle-bell swings or punch squats with dumbbells.

In any event, I got a lot done, certainly more than I have the past few weekends, and I would definitely give the pomodoro an encore. 

Lost Song

When I saw this morning that I had missed the news of Gary Paulsen's passing earlier this week, I took some time to mourn him,  listening to some interviews from last spring when he published his memoir, Gone to the Woods. I realized that although I've read at least 20 books by him, I had never heard him speak, and I was surprised by how soft his voice was. Not weak, no, just not as gravelly as I imagined it Having seen his picture, bearded and gruff, on the back of so many books these last 30 years. 

And then I thought how many times I had heard my own voice reading his words out loud, and I searched to see if there were any audiobooks of his that he had narrated himself. There were only three-- Woodsong, Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers, and My Life in Dog Years, all of them non-fiction, all of them about time spent outdoors with his dogs. 

I had read them all, but there was an excerpt from Woodsong in one of the sixth grade anthologies that I used with my students for years, and so I downloaded that recording and started to listen. I had forgotten how awful the beginning is, purposefully so, to make a point about what Paulsen thought he knew about nature and how wrong he turned out to be. Somehow, hearing the account of the wolves and the doe they chase down in Paulsen's own voice, was even worse than reading it; his sorrow and trauma come through so clearly.

I listened to a few more chapters and then I paused the recording. I could have lost myself all day in the woods of Northern Minnesota, but I knew I shouldn't. I had papers to grade and chores to do.

Years ago, my mother saw that Gary Paulsen was doing a reading near her home in the Twin Cities. She knew of my fondness and admiration for his work, and so she went to get a couple books signed as a surprise for me. When she and her friend got to the front of the line, Paulsen laughed as he took the books. "You girls seem a little old to be fans," he teased them.

In fact he and my Mom were born less than a month apart, and he was 82 when he died on Wednesday. The two of them lived long, full lives, but the world seems a lot emptier now that they are gone, and I miss them.

The Only Way Out is Through

 "Will you be here after school today?" one of my students asked in class this morning.

"Probably," I shrugged, since it's rare that I leave before 4:30.

"Oh, good!" she clapped. "My brother's home from college and he wants to come visit all his teachers!"

I forgot about our conversation until a little while after the dismissal bell rang, when I heard quiet conversation in the hallway. "There's yours!" my student said.

"Right there at the top!" a deep voice answered her. "That's something."

I knew they were looking at the quilt we had made of all the team t-shirts. Her brother's design had won the contest when he was in sixth grade, and that year we had all proudly worn his drawing of a dolphin.

A minute later my student poked her head in my door. "Here he is!" she announced. 

A more mature version of the intense, pink-cheeked boy I remembered stepped into the room, smiling. 

"How are you?" I greeted him.

"I'm great!" he said. "I'm doing well.

As we caught up he told me that he was an honors chemistry student at William and Mary, pre-med with his eye on cardiac thoracic surgery. 

"That's amazing," I congratulated him.

"Thanks," he answered. "I'm really happy. Things are good."

For me, talking to former students is rewarding, but it can turn awkward quickly. Once I've shared a memory or two of their time in my class, and they've told me what they are doing now, the conversation usually lags. A few months ago after one such encounter I decided that I would ask each of them what advice they might give their sixth grade selves. Today was my first chance to try out the question.

"I would tell myself to ignore all the mean and hateful things the other kids said to me," he answered immediately.

I nodded. "You always were a person who spoke your mind," I said. "I can see where that would make you a target."

"You know the story, right?" he replied.

I frowned, and he continued.

"When I was in seventh grade they made a "We hate you" club, and basically every day told me I should kill myself."

I gasped. "Did you get help? Did you tell someone?"

"Eventually I told my counselor and then my therapist, but not before I tried to commit suicide."

I shook my head sorrowfully. "I'm so sorry that happened to you," I said. 

"I'm fine now," he replied, and put his arm around his sister's shoulder. "Everything is really, really good."

I believed him. There was a lump in my throat when I said, "It's a terrible story, and it makes your accomplishments even more impressive."

"Thank you," he said, "and thanks for asking. I didn't expect to pour my heart today."

New Do

"Does my hair look okay?" Heidi asked this morning before we left for school. She had it in a fun, sloppy ponytail, a look she usually reserves for weekends.

"It's cute!" I told her, "totally fine for school."

I forgot about our conversation until this afternoon when the sound of running feet drew my attention immediately and I looked up from my computer and craned my neck to see if I needed to get out to the hallway. There was no need. Heidi was standing right outside my window, between her new room and mine, and the feet skidded to a halt when their owner noticed her. "That's right," she said sternly, "you better walk in this school." 

I watched the student approaching her, the expression on his face a combination of darn it and damn it, but then his eyes widened and he knit his brow. "You look new!" he said, scanning her suspiciously for a moment. "Don’t tell me— you got a haircut," he concluded and then continued past her into her room.

"At least he didn't say I looked old," Heidi said and followed him inside.

A Bit of a Stretch

"My story is too short!" one of my students announced with anguish today. 

"One strategy you might like to try to add extra detail is to close your eyes, imagine you are watching a movie of your story, and then write down everything you see and hear," I suggested.

"Well, that would be the most boring movie ever," she replied. "Can't I just leave it short?"

Give a Silly Answer

The question of the day was, "What did you do over your long weekend?" 

The answers were getting a little snarky right before lunch, so rather than call out the jokesters myself, I asked the class if they had any follow-up questions about each post. When one kid wrote that he breathed over the weekend, his classmates good-naturedly showed him how silly the answer was.

"Does anyone have any questions?" I asked after I read his post.

Several hands shot up, and so did the writer's eyebrows. He was not expecting any interest in his report.

"What did you breathe?" asked one.

"Air, duh," replied the kid.

"How did you breathe?" asked another.

"Through my nose," answered the kid.

Another student raised his hand. "How long did you breathe?"

"I'm still doing it," he answered.

"Wow," said his classmate. "You must really like breathing.

Oops! There it Is

Today was a day of learning in our district, and I'd like to hope that all involved learned a few lessons.

 First, when they were introducing the keynote speaker, the superintendent and his chief of staff were experiencing a technical difficulty they were obviously unaware of. After ten minutes with a buzzy, echoing audio feed that transformed their voices into those of TV aliens, the screen went black and a few minutes later the live event returned with all systems go. That is, until the keynote speaker tried to play a video in the first part of her presentation, and instead all we saw was her, obviously enjoying the video which we could hear, but not see. There was no chat enabled, and so she went on, obliviously, until the next clip didn't show either, and then we went back.

I extend all involved a lot of grace; in fact the next session I participated in was a straight up video call, and with no restrictions on the participants, I unpinned and re-pinned the ASL interpreter for all 350 of us at least twice while I adjusted my own view (in an attempt to clear the screen of all the people who were asked to have their cameras off, but didn't get the message.) Oh, and I'm pretty sure I stopped the recording for everyone when I tried to switch the call from my lap top to my phone.

No question! Technology is tricky. That's why we teachers always check and double check the settings on any virtual meeting we are running, because kids, people, humans, whoever! click where we shouldn't.

But it just seems like by now? 

They should have gotten that right at the top, too. 

I Must Do Better

"I'm starving!" I said to Heidi as we headed into our house after a 2 1/2 hour pet-store odyssey on a quest to find the perfect dog treats. "All I ate today was eggs, potatoes, and cookies!" I shook my head at my own indiscretion and sighed. "Shopping marathons and cookies for lunch? It's like the holidays are coming early this year."

Bumpy Transition

There were a few moments today when I was setting up my new phone that I was afraid my oldest text messages wouldn't transfer over. I would have considered that an unacceptable loss, worthy of a trip to the Genius Bar, even, because of the messages I have from my mom. And as I remained calm, trying to trouble shoot the situation, one of the things I did was to text her, in an attempt to force the recovery of that chain of messages. Miss you! I sent, and for a long while, too long, that was the only little speech bubble on a vast, empty white screen.

In the end, the issue was not technical, but rather one of patience. When at last my new phone was totally restored from the back-up I had done right before activating it, that message was just the latest in a conversation stretching back many years, much of it mundane, but all of it a treasure.

Imperfect Topic

I always tell my students that mistakes and catastrophes make the best stories. "Nobody wants to read about how you get straight A's without even trying!" I say. "Give us a little conflict! Give us some struggle!"

That's why I was kind of enthusiastic when one of the young writers in my class said that she was thinking of writing about the time she dropped a whole bowl of mashed potatoes in her friend's backpack.

This potato dropper is kind of popular, and her friend happened to be in the class, as were a couple of witnesses to the accident. They all started to recount the incident enthusiastically.

"That was soooo funny," said one.

"How did you even clean your backpack out?" asked another.

"I just scooped them out as best I could," the victim laughed. "There's probably some still in there."

"I just don't know what lesson I learned, though," the author sighed. "Don't drop your mashed potatoes? That's not very interesting."

"It's not a universal message," I agreed. 

"I guess I could make it Be more careful," she suggested with a frown, "but I don't really like that one either.

I looked at her good-natured friend and her potato-sodden book bag. "How did she react?" I asked. "Was she mad?"

"No!" said the writer. "Not at all."

"I pretty much just laughed," confirmed the other student.

"Some people might get pretty upset about something like that," I shrugged. "Maybe there's a lesson in that."

The girl thought a moment. "I think I'll just write about the perfect chocolate cake I made," she said.

October 1969

These days Halloween is a big business, with entire retail spaces devoted to costumes and decorations, but it was not always like that. Although there were several rows of boxes with thin nylon costumes and plastic masks with cheap elastic bands that always broke almost before you could wear them lined up on shelves in the discount department store near our house, when I was a kid the holiday was a little less involved, but just as exciting and fun. 

In fact, one of the clearest memories of my childhood is Halloween 1969. [Insert wavy screen and harp music here.]

The orchestra was just striking the first notes of the theme music to Bewitched on TV, and I looked anxiously at my mom. "When is Daddy going to get home?" It was the Thursday night before Halloween the next day, and our perfect pumpkin was waiting to become our perfect jack o'lantern. 

Bedtime was usually 8:30, but tonight the plan was to watch America's favorite witch at 9:00 while carving the pumpkin. Just then, the front door opened and my dad came in, smelling of smoke and cool evening air. We rushed to greet him as we always did, hugging his legs. 

It was Dad's job to use our biggest knife to cut a circle around the stem and pull the top of the pumpkin off. After that, my mom scooped out the insides with a large kitchen spoon and plopped them into a bowl. My brother and sister and I plucked the slippery seeds from the stringy, orange guts, placing them into a separate dish where we would toss them with salt and oil and roast them in the oven for a crunchy, once-a-year snack.

Next, since there was only one pumpkin and three kids, we each picked a folded slip of paper from Phillies baseball cap to see who got to create the eyes, the nose, or the mouth. We drew our shapes on the back of the paper, and my mom transferred our designs in pencil to the pumpkin. Then my dad went to work again, carefully cutting along each line.

When he was finished, he carried our creation out to the front porch, my mom behind him with a candle and the three-legged milking stool we kept as an extra seat in the living room. Outside, we set the pumpkin on the stool by the door and placed the candle inside. Then we all stepped back while my dad lit the candle and my mom turned off the porch light, revealing the glowing face of our jack o'lantern.

Before bed that night, my mom had us try on the costumes that she had made for us. We were going to be the Rice Krispies elves, Snap, Crackle, and Pop. She had a lightweight cardboard replica of the cereal box for each of us to wear over our heads. Underneath, we were in tights and different colored t-shirts. Then I, as the oldest, had Snap's floppy white chef's hat, my brother had Krackle's red-and-white striped stocking cap, and my three-year-old sister wore a yellow toque.

She pinned our hats to finalize the fit so that our costumes would be ready for the parade and class party at school the next day. Then she sent us off to bed where we dreamed of the perfect Halloween we would have tomorrow.

My COVID Bunker

I looked around our home last night to size up what would need to be done to prepare it for company. It's been nearly 2 years since we have entertained anyone other than family, and in that time, well? Pandemic. Stay at home orders. Social distancing. You know.

Like many who could, we made the best of being at home, all the time, by adapting and adopting. Unable to go to the gym, we bought a mat and some extra weights so that we could work out in front of the TV. Those are stored near the bookshelves, right next to my ukuleles and songbooks. Likewise, I took up yoga and meditation, so a sheepskin, pillow, candle collection, and a few crystals have all taken residence in the spare room. Dog and cat training? You need games and equipment for that, and those are stashed all over the house, really, since that's where you can find our pets. Rock painting, ornament making, and other such crafting supplies are packed into bins which have to be stacked somewhere. Gardening and harvesting tools and containers fit into the closet and the rear of the cars, except when they don't. Quarts and pints of preserved tomatoes and jams are packed in printed cardboard cases which are stacked in the dining room next to the vinyl records we listen to occasionally. Assorted flours and ingredients for sourdough breads, bagels, tarts, English muffins, and canele are stored in mason jars on the kitchen counter right next to the freshly-roasted coffee beans bought in bulk from the roasters in Savannah, Annapolis, and Buffalo.

We made an art of hunkering down, and now that things are [mostly] opened up? It might be time to reoganize.

Maybe.

Right There's a Gap

The assignment was relatively straight-forward: students were to work with their table groups to complete a kind of a scavenger hunt, searching through a text to find examples of powerful writing. And yet, the classroom was almost silent as I circulated through, clarifying the task, answering questions, and encouraging kids to work together.

"Why aren't you talking?" I asked.

"I'm not done yet," one student answered.

"I know," I said, "the idea is that you work together and talk your ideas through."

"But he's got more answers than I do," the student pointed out. "Wouldn't that be cheating?"

And so it went, most students preferring to complete the analysis on their own instead of collaborating. 

"I don't understand it!" I said at last to one class, "It would be so much easier and more productive for you guys to follow my directions and WORK TOGETHER!"

I looked at them. They looked back at me. We were equally bemused.

"What!" I finally asked. "Have you spent the last year and a half learning all by yourself at home?"

Turns out? They had.

That's Good Writing

Walking through the neighborhood late this afternoon, I spotted a sign tacked to a telephone pole. Composed in pencil by a young and earnest hand, it was impossible to pass by.

Come to 2416 south culpeper street to watch a show of your life time. in order to see this you will have to get ready a qourter 25¢ make sure its one coin. your host is a stuffed skeloton in the door steps. he will have a cup in his write hand. get your qourter and put it in. I hope you enjoy it!

And although the capitalization, punctuation, and spelling were imperfect, I was just sorry I didn't have a quarter!

Second Nature

While I shopped at our neighborhood farmers market this morning, Heidi walked over to the adjoining playground to get a drink for Lucy from the water fountain. She found the basin filled with plastic cups of sand and water, and as she lifted one to clear the bubbler, two tiny girls ran over from the play structure, fixin' for a fight. 

"What are you doing with our cups?" they demanded, little hands on tiny hips.

Rather than tell them off, Heidi went full-Socratic on the pre-schoolers. "Do you think it makes it easier or harder to use the water fountain when your cups are there?" she asked them in her best kindly teacher voice.

They thought about the question a minute. "Harder," older girl answered.

"Don't we want people and animals to be able to get water to drink if they are thirsty?" Heidi continued.

The girls nodded. Heidi handed them their cups, and they ran off to play while she filled a bowl for Lucy.

"Well look you just spreading social skills where ever you go!" I teased her when she told me the story on the walk home. 

"It's my service to the community," she agreed, modestly.

Name That Tune

 It was around 6 PM when we pulled up to a light beside a car that was literally rocking. The windows were rolled down and I could see a young woman in the driver's seat singing at the top of her lungs. Her eyes were reflected in the rear view mirror, but they did not meet mine; they were focused on the little girl in the backseat who was singing along. Their joy? Was contagious, and I wanted a little of what they had. I rolled down the window and listened to the song blasting from their car. "I don't know that," I confessed to Heidi. "Do you?"

She didn't, and right then the light changed, and they were gone. "Hey Siri!" I called, waiting for that amorphous purple cloud to materialize. "What song goes like this?" and I sang a few bars.

To my amazement, Siri gave us a title an artist right away. 'Wow!" I said to Heidi. "She recognized my singing! That's pretty good!"

And so I tested her again by asking her to play the song, so that we, too, might roll down our windows and sing as loud as we could to the warm October evening. But the song that came on was not the same, and it was time for us to get on the interstate, so we rolled up the windows and headed home.

Bare Faced

Today was picture day at school, and although I went after the final bell had rung I still found myself in a kind of a long line. I made the best of it by chatting up a student I had only met earlier today; she is a bit of character who carries around a tiny black lump that she has named Mr. Bean in a little plastic box.

"Can I call him Senor Frijoles?" I joked, because she is a Spanish speaking student.

"No!" she insisted. "He is not for me to eat! He is dried slime!"

As we waited, I asked her if she was going to smile for the camera.

"I'm not going to show my teeth!" she said, and explained why, but I couldn't really follow her. I was a little distracted by the site of the students on the stage; as we got closer I could see them posing without their masks. 

And although I didn't know too many of them, I was a little excited about the prospect of seeing the new pictures of the students I do teach when they update my grade book in a few weeks. Even though we're all used to seeing the masks, once in a while a kid will pull theirs down to take a sip of water and another student will say, "I did not think you looked like that under your mask!" and I'll realize that I totally agree. 

Flex Time

I asked the sixth graders to post a single word that best described how they were feeling today, and the most popular word by far was "tired." 

I sympathize with them. As I wrote a few days ago, last week was the first full, five day, in person week since March of 2020, and I'm feeling it, too.

When I shared my observation with the students, one kid was all over it. "I know!" she said, "But I didn't even have a full week last week!"

"Because you broke your arm," I nodded.

"Right!" she said rapidly, like she says everything. 

"Then this is your first full week?" asked the student beside her.

"Nope," she fired back. "Early release yesterday. I won't have a regular week until next week."

It was actually the next item on our agenda to talk about schedule changes for next week. Because of state-mandated testing, we are about to implement the seventh and eighth versions of schedules for the sixth graders. In addition to Block A, Block B, Anchor, A, Anchor B, Early Release Anchor A, next Monday and Tuesday we're having Testing Day Anchor A and Testing Day Anchor B. (Which should be easily recast as Delayed Opening Anchor A and Delayed Opening Anchor B-- but who knows?) 

"What time is lunch?" the fast talking kid asked when I told them about the testing.

"12:45," I replied.

"What! That's so late! Yesterday we ate at 10 AM and next week we have to wait until 12:45? Why??" she dramatically dropped her head to the table in mock despair.

But again, she had a good point. The Early Release schedule does call for the sixth graders to go to lunch after a compressed timetable of five 21-minute classes. But to be honest? I kind of love it. My teaching day is over when they go, leaving plenty of time for planning and grading.

In fact, when my CLT met for professional development yesterday afternoon, I was in exceptional humor. "It's the schedule!" I explained. "If I could teach these hours every day? I'd be good to go for another 10 years!"

Service Industry

"I'm not sure how they cook it," a student told me the other day when he was writing about a traditional family food. "We always buy it."

I scanned what he had written "Injera?" I said. "I think they cook it on a huge, flat stone or griddle."

"Like a pancake?" he confirmed.

"Yep," I answered, "and they use a special grain called tef."

He nodded.

"Does your family cook the food that you have with it?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" he replied.

"Like, do you have doro wat or something that you make it home?" 

He shook his head and frowned. Suddenly he laughed. "Do you mean do do wet? Chicken stew?" 

I laughed, too. "I guess I didn't pronounce that very well." What I had said sounded like door-oh-watt. "How do you say it again?"

He patiently coached me until we both agreed that I was much closer than I had been at the beginning of the conversation. "Thank you," I told him. "You taught me something important today." 

And I meant it! Especially when I think back on all the times I ordered that dish from an Ethiopian restaurant, butchering the pronunciation on every occasion, and considering how patient the waiters were with me.

Of course it was their job to understand me and help me to get what I needed and wanted.

Just as it is mine.

Three Squares

At our school, the final project for the first unit of sixth grade English is a personal narrative that is somehow related to food. Since kids have been writing personal narratives since 3rd or 4th grade, our team made the decision a few years ago in an effort to shake our young writers away from their go-to topic. Plus, food is universal, we reasoned, everyone eats every day and there is a lot of untapped material there.

Today was the day when I revealed that parameter of the assignment to the students, and to be honest? They were underwhelmed and even a little resistant to the idea, and as confident as I am in our choice and reasoning, by the end of the day I was a little weary of defending it. 

That is, until in the waning minutes of the last class, when we were wrapping up, a student walked over to me to ask me a question in a semi-private conversation."Can I tell you a fun fact about myself?"

Sure!" I said and turned from what I was working on to look at him. 

"I do not like cake or cookies or pie or ice cream or anything sweet!" he declared.

"Wow!" I answered "That is unusual! What do you like?"

"Mostly Asian food," he told me.

"Your family is from Vietnam, right?" I said. "What are your favorite foods?"

We talked for a few minutes about Pho (he likes it with tripe!) and summer rolls and my favorite, cha gio (Spring rolls). He told me his mom is a great cook, but she has a Bolivian friend who is so good at making spring rolls that they always get her to do it. He also told me that his mom had lost her job because of COVID, but that his dad was still working, and they were doing okay.

"It was really nice talking to you," I said as the bell rang and he gathered his things.

"Can I tell you something else?" he stopped at my desk before he left. "You're my favorite teacher!"

And as pleased as I was to hear him say that, I'd really like to think it was the food talking!

Low Bar

 The question of the day today was What did you have for breakfast? Which to me seemed like a quickie to me, but the chorus of "What if you didn't eat anything? was louder than I thought, and convincing students that "Nothing" was an acceptable answer in that situation took a little time. And I might have seemed a little more frustrated than usual, because, in an astute social maneuver, one of the kids asked me what I had for breakfast.

"I bet it was Eggs Benedict, right?" she guessed.

I laughed, wishing I had that much time in the morning.

"I don't even know what it is," she continued, "but since you used to be a chef it sounds like something you might make."

After I explained what it was, and subsequently gave a quick run down on poaching, and then refereed a heated debate on the desirability of runny yolks, I pulled the class back together by announcing my morning menu.

"Actually, I had avocado toast and iced coffee for breakfast today."

The class sat in stunned silence for a moment.

"Lucky!" scoffed one student.

"What kind of bread?" asked another enviously.

"It was sandwich bread I made myself," I shrugged.

"Wow! You really are a chef," the first kid said.

Recalibrating

Now that we've survived that first full in-person week since March 2020, today I've realized there's a bit of a nasty corollary:

The first real two-day weekend since March 2020.

Ouch!

Equipment Malfunction

 The cart would not go. 

Usually? I'm a hand basket or mini-grocery cart person, but our new supermarket has underground parking which means riding the elevator or using the cart escalator to get your purchases to the car. And so I have learned to park near the corral and select a full-sized shopping cart when my list is long.

Which I did today, and my mind was already in the car and driving home when I pushed my fully loaded cart through the swinging doors and onto the tiny channel which was supposed to guide it down. Except it didn't! My cart froze and it was only sheer muscle that brought it back to me, but there was no rolling it anywhere. 

Perplexed, I signaled one of the young employees overseeing the self-checkout. "My art is locked!" I reported with dismay, and nodding politely, he went over to a secret drawer and returned with a device about the size of a lockbox for a rental property. All of a sudden my cart could roll again!

"Can I take it down?" I asked hesitantly, and I should have listened to my gut, but his nod seemed so reassuring.

Once again, my cart locked at the top, but this time as I was struggling to free it, the young man who had bagged my grocery came to the rescue. "Let me help you," he said, and with a mighty heave shoved my cart forward. 

I hadn't noticed the touch screen at the top of the apparatus until it started beeping and flashing the CONTACT CUSTOMER SERVICE message.

"I'll be right back," the guy said and I watched him go over to the counter about 10 yards away, speak to someone and walk away. When I had almost given up, a women strode purposefully up to me from the other direction.

"I'll help you!" she said waving her key card across the display and confidently tapping a series of numbers. The belt began moving.

"Yay!" I said, but before I could thank her, my cart stalled again and she frowned. Repeating the series, she leaned on the last button to keep everything going, and I hopped on my side of the escalator. Arriving at the bottom along with my cart, I turned to see her wave and start away, presumably to solve another problem. Just then? My cart locked again, frozen at the bottom of the incline.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Excuse me!" 

And thankfully? She heard me and turned. Descending the escalator herself, she commandeered another cart from the guy who was bringing them up in the elevator, transferred my groceries, and yanked the offender out of there. "So sorry for the inconvenience!" she told me, and as I walked away I heard her muttering. "I gotta call my boss."

Here for a Reason

This week the sixth grade writers have been working on sensory detail poems modeled after Knoxville, TN by Nikki Giovanni. The mini-lesson today was on endings, and the importance of adding a final thought to let the reader know the significance of the place and time these poets chose as their topic. 

At this age, theme can be a little too abstract for many kids, but some of them captured their message quite nicely:

...and close your eyes and wish to stay there forever

...and think that everyone should have a monument for the great things they accomplished in their life.

...and be brave and scared at the same time 

...and say good-bye to the ocean and welcome back dear home

...and start a new beginning, not only when you wake up in the morning 

...and laugh and feel like the luckiest person in the world 

...and feel like you can do anything, because you can

Hybrid Design

My friend Mary and I took a working walk during our planning time today. As we stretched our legs on a mile-long loop through campus and around the neighborhood, we compared notes on today's lesson and what we have coming up next week. 

We also looked up the listing for a tiny, 1900 square foot, 2-bedroom, 2-bath house with some updates ($885,000!). Rounding the corner, Mary spotted a huge, new-construction house down the street. 

"Fancy!" she noted. "They obviously have some serious money-- look at their three Land Rovers in the driveway."

"That used to be one of my favorite houses in the neighborhood," I said, "an old farmhouse with a big porch."

"I'm not saying I don't like the new house," Mary nodded. "I'm just saying it doesn't really fit in here."

"Well, they do have that more traditional facade in the front," I said looking at a wide white gable over a spacious porch. "But that back is all contemporary-- it's like a giant brown box." I paused. "I guess it's business in the front and party in the back."

"Right," Mary agreed, "the mullet of houses!”

And although the hairstyle is enjoying a bit of a comeback, I can’t help thinking those people are going to regret that house. Because it’s never going to grow out. 

Sugar

In the three minutes between third period and lunch today there were some students in my classroom shooting balls at the mini-hoop, others reciting poetry in either a single breath or from memory, and still others brainstorming the most precise sensory details they could about a single place in their favorite season. 

All for a chance at candy, of course. 

I did offer sincere congratulations in the form of a way-to-go-kid elbow bump as an alternative, but there were no takers. Even so, I was richly rewarded by their words and their writing and their joy, even when they did not succeed, and I think they might have been, too.

"It's okay," one student said when I expressed my admiration for the attempt along with my condolences for not quite winning the Jolly Rancher. "It will be fun to try again tomorrow!"

Facial Recognition

Not yet quite used to the timing of our block schedule, I was power-walking into the office and toward the ladies' room at the beginning of lunch today when I locked eyes with a student waiting in the chairs there. He showed no real sign of recognition, but looking at all that was visible above the mask, a mop of wavy, brown hair, hazel eyes, smooth caramel forehead, and ears studded with at least a dozen blingy earrings, I couldn't shake the feeling that I knew him. 

Such interactions are very common at school this year. Just last week a student planted himself in front of me as I stood greeting kids in the hallway. "Hello!" he said with a broad wave.

"Hello!" I said and cocked my head. "Who are you?"

"Dewayne!" he told me. I was thrilled to meet one of my best students from last year in person for the first time, and we spent an animated, if weird, few minutes both catching up and getting to know each other.

Today, as I exited the office on my way back to eat my lunch, I heard that kid in the chairs talking to one of the secretaries as I passed and spun on my heel. "Is that Steven?" I asked.

"It sure is!" the secretary answered. 

"I thought I recognized you!" I told him, "but I wasn't sure."

Turning to the secretary I explained. "He never turned his camera on last year, but that voice..." I laughed and from his eyes, I could tell he was smiling a real, genuine smile. "That voice is unmistakable." I came back into the office. "It is nice to finally meet you, Steven."

Longest Three Weeks Ever

Last week, when one of my students called his classmate "that kid", I gave the group a pep talk about community and offered a reward to anyone who could name everyone in the class. Over the next few days, there were several takers, and I was impressed and heartened by their attention to the other kids in the class. "I know how hard it is," I laughed to my teacher friends at lunch, "because I feel like I just learned the names and faces myself!"

But today, when I scanned the 2 assessment forms I have been charged to complete for some student support meetings, I wished for an N/A or "not yet observed" option on many of the questions. I also wondered if I was somehow coming up short because I couldn't give a 1-5 on tests, peer relationships, or accommodations imperative for success. In the end, I reviewed the available data, and completed the form as best I could.

"Do you know I've only worked five days this year?" my friend Mary sighed this afternoon. She's been out on family leave since the day her father died a couple of week ago, and today was her first day back. "It seems like these kids need to re-learn almost everything."

I sympathized, but it was the five day figure that captured my attention. "Today was six?" I clarified.

She shrugged-- it had been a hard re-entry.

"But, you were out for six days! That means we've only been in school for 12." 

And with block scheduling? I've only seen most of the kids six times!

Now, that explains a lot.

Very Late Summer

It was a busy weekend, and so it was nearly six this evening when we walked up to the garden to harvest anything that might not last until midweek when we will be able to find the time to return. The peppers are finally coming in, some of the tomatoes are enjoying a resurgence, and the shell beans seem to think it's still July; we can thank the hot weather we had last week for that, I think. 

Although we picked briskly and dawdled not at all in the garden, dusk was coming on quickly as we headed home. The cold front this morning brought us some drier air, but there was no chill, yet, and we were comfortable in our shorts and flip flops. Still, the light told us that summer will not linger much longer. As we walked home in the gathering evening we heard some folks out on their decks and patios, enjoying the final hours of the weekend, but the windows, too, cast a warm and golden glow, encouraging a passerby to hurry home.

With a K

 A few days ago at Target we ran into the son of a friend of ours. This young man was also a former student at our school, and so it was fun catching up with him. He had some really good news to share, too. "I had to buy me some more polo shirts," he said, showing us the jewel-toned garments he was carrying. "I got a promotion! I'm a district supervisor now!"

"Congratulations!" I told him "That is awesome!"

"I even get my own office!" he replied. "I have been decorating it all week with pictures of Kobe Bryant."

I was reminded that it was when he was a student at our school that Heidi had hamsters as classroom pets. She generously adopted them from a student who was forced to give them up, but unfortunately, their former owner kept putting the male and female in the same tank together at school, and so soon the two hamsters became seven. (Then they became four, because, well, you know what hamsters do if they feel their environment can't support their young.) It was a rather traumatic time.

Back at Target, I remembered that this guy had adopted one of the baby hamsters and named him Kobe. "Do you have any pictures of Kobe the hamster in your office?" I teased him.

He looked wistful. "Ah, no," he answered. "But that was my first pet, so now it's the answer to all my security questions!"

Eighteen Months Later

I literally scratched my head as I stood in front of the big, new copy machine in the main office. After tapping around a bit on the darkened touch screen, I finally woke the giant up and found that it wasn't really that different from the last copier we had. But when I had to think a minute about where to find some of the settings and controls, it occurred to me that I hadn't made a single copy since before March 13, 2020. Almost all of my instruction had been electronic since then.

"How many trees do you think you saved?" joked a colleague when I told him.

"That's not even the point!" I said, do you know what else I haven't done since that week in March 2020?"

He shook his head.

"Have a full, five-day week of in-person school! None of us have." I pointed at the calendar. "But, get ready... it's happening next week!"

Susan's Salsa

One of the unexpected pleasures of the wedding we attended last weekend came when I was drying dishes. At about 10 on the night of the wedding, those who were still celebrating were *really* still celebrating, and a few, a little more sober, of us decided to get a start on clean up. That is how I found myself working to clear the cluttered kitchen with the sister of the bride. 

I have known Josh's Aunt Susan for over 20 years; she is his mom's younger sister, and was probably around 21 when we first met. Like many big sisters, Michelle is sometimes dismissive of her younger sibling, but over the years I've seen Susan become a wife, a mother of three, and an accomplished homesteader, with all sorts of enviable making and preserving skills. When the kitchen was as clean and organized as we could get it, She opened a jar of her candied jalapeños, chopped some spring onion and stirred them into cream cheese. The concoction was delicious on crackers. 

As we discussed the heat level (pretty mild), she told me about a friend who, after tasting the jalapeños, requested candied ghost peppers. "I treated it like the toxic mixture it was," she said. "I ordered a gas mask from Amazon and wore two layers of rubber gloves past my elbows. I have a three-burner gas cooker out in my back yard, and I did all the cooking and canning there."

My eyes were huge. 

She laughed. "And it would have been fine, except for some reason, I took the gloves off to do the dishes." She shook her head with rue. "My hands were red for a week and super sensitive to any heat of even warm air. I had a chemical burn!"

"Did the guy actually eat his peppers?" I asked, thinking that if they could do that to her hands, what would they do to someone's throat.

"Yep," she shrugged. "He loved 'em."

A little while later, she gave me her method for making salsa. 

Cut your tomatoes in half and squeeze out the seeds. Place them cut side down on a baking sheet, with sliced onions, garlic cloves, and seeded peppers. Run the sheet under the broiler until everything is charred. When cool, the tomato skins slip right off and the pepper skins will, too. Chop everything together, season to taste, put into pint jars and water process. One sheet pan makes about a quart.

I tried her recipe this morning with tomatoes and peppers from my garden and onions and garlic from Treat's farm. A little of the fresh cilantro I have growing on the deck, and some cumin and sea salt completed the salsa. 

But it won't be around long enough to can, because it's that good.

Near Miss

The compost bin in my garden is snugged up to the chainlink fence that separates the community from the public sidewalk that runs right along its edge. Over the years I've had a few conversations with friendly bypassers, even recognizing one or two people from school or the neighborhood, but in general the folks walking by while I work politely ignore me just as I do them. 

So today, when I chucked a rotten tomato from the far side of the plot to the compost bin without looking, I gasped when I noticed a pedestrian heading my way. Mostly, my aim is true, but I have splattered a few over-ripe things through the fence. And goodness, did that teenaged girl, all focused on her phone, jump when a soft, pulpy mess kerplunked into the nest of vines and clippings in the bin a few inches from her phone hand.

Our eyes met when she scanned the area to identify the threat, and I waved wildly. "Sorry! Sorry!" I apologized. 

And to her credit and my relief, she laughed and kept on walking.

Just One Thing

The warm-up question for class today and yesterday was "If you had to eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?" 

Even though I explained that it was really just a thinking exercise, the sixth graders took it very seriously, many of them posting answers and then replying to themselves to add or change their responses.

Here are a few examples:

Bread

Or maybe grapes

No actually it would be pizza

Pizza is my final decision

And this one:

Funnel cake 

Because its just soooo good in my opinion, but I would miss French fries

 Because French fries never let me down as well

LIKE NOT EVERRR!!!

There were also a few surprises:

Honeydew, I guess...

Or spinach

And

My choice would be whey because it would supply me with much protein. It wouldn’t taste very good but it is healthy.

 The kind without lead

There were also kids who tried to game the question

Eggs, cause you can have them lots of ways

Subway subs

Different pizza every day

But my favorite of these cheatin' answers was this one:

A sandwich with every single type of food on it.

"Wow, that's so smart," marveled another student. "You can just take off anything you don't like!"

Keeping it Fresh

At this point in the growing season, I confess that my attention to cultivation wanes. Most of the crops in my vegetable garden are near their end, and watering the hanging baskets and potted plants here at home is much less of a priority, especially when I spend so many hours away from them at school. 

Even so, when I stepped out to our top deck late this afternoon the condition of the zinnias and snapdragons was quite alarming, and I filled the half-gallon purple pitcher by the door right away in an attempt to resuscitate them.  Satisfied that, after several trips back and forth from the bathroom sink, they may revive enough to forgive me for a weekend out of town, I looked over the railing at the hanging baskets on the level below. They, too, were in considerable stress. 

I could have gone downstairs to fill the gallon pitcher I keep in the kitchen, but laziness got the best of me. I refilled my trusty upstair pitcher and leaned over, aiming the stream of water 8 feet down to hit the basket centers so that it might hydrate without splashing out. It was challenging enough to be fun, and I was giggling a little when a neighbor wandered by with her dog. 

"Whatcha doing?" she asked in amusement, and when I explained, she stayed to watch, well beyond the splash zone, but laughing with me, all the same.

Way More than Half Full

 As the wedding celebration entered its 27th hour a bottle of blue wine with sparkles on the bar caught one of the party-goer's eye. "Where did that come from?" she asked the bride. "My mom loves sparkles in everything!"

"A vineyard down the road," the hostess replied. "Do you want to try it? There should be a cork screw somewhere around here." 

Truth be told, they had both had quite a bit to drink already, and the cork screw proved impossible to find.

"Maybe it's not a good idea to open it," the bride suggested. "It might just make us throw up."

The 21-year-old guest waved her hand. "I'm probably going to throw up later anyway, and the sparkles might make it a little nicer!"

But that cork screw never turned up, and besides? They were doing shots of moonshine over at the picnic table.

Dream Wedding

"We were just going to go down to the justice of the peace," our friend told us last night, "but the kids convinced us to, well..." she swept her hand toward the yard, indicating the tent with 10 eight-top tables, the converted carport bar, the 12-foot fire ring, the enormous fallen tree whose weathered roots make the backdrop for the vows.

Her 15-year-old daughter and her friend, the bridesmaids, along with Pinterest, were the creative forces behind the event. And what a crazy-quilt spectacle of a day it promises to be! Cotton candy, soft serve ice cream, tea and lemonade slushies, corn hole, horseshoes, and knife and axe-throwing are all options, along with ATV riding on the trails, a fully stocked, split-log-wagon wheel bar, a DJ named Giggles, and s'mores around the huge bonfire in the evening.

I can't wait!

Saving the Date

A friend is getting married tomorrow afternoon. Her wedding day also happens to be the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the hijacking of Flight 93. Tonight, as friends and family gathered around a roaring bonfire within sight of the wedding and bar tents glittering with thousands of fairy lights, the topic of the date inevitably came up.

"I googled the etiquette of planning a celebration on 9-11," our friend confessed, "and it pretty much said that there's never a problem with creating happy memories, even on a sad day." She shrugged. "The 11th worked."

She's right, of course. Every day is the anniversary of something sad, but it is also the anniversary of something amazing.

Let Me Talk to Your Manager

"That's not for you!" I reminded my class when he bell rang four minutes before lunch in my 5th period, A Day block.  That particular class is split into 2 45-minute sessions by lunch. Bending their 11-year-old minds even more, yesterday was an A-Anchor Day, but today is an A Day Block, and so 6th graders went to the same "alternating" PE/Language class two days in a row. Third period is a single class every day, and first or second is a true block, but fifth and fourth are always divided by lunch.

So I wasn't surprised even a little when one student stopped five minutes later on her way out the door to lunch. "I just have one question," she said. "Why. can't. we. just. have. the. same. schedule. every. day?!"

I nodded sympathetically. "That's out of my hands," I told her. "But if you're not used to it in a few weeks? I'll be happy to help you prepare your message to the people who make those decisions."

She rolled her eyes and sighed and then headed off to lunch.

Beginning of the Year Assessment

As the hook for a lesson on standards-based grading, I asked the students to give middle school a grade so far. They were free to use number scales, percentages, or letter grades, as long as they could justify their rating. 

After 4 days in and 5 days off, (not to mention a year and a half of disrupted instruction), middle school did pretty well, earning a solid 3.3 average. In the plus column was seeing friends, nice teachers, moving independently through the building, longer lunch, and a really big library. Drawbacks were a confusing schedule, a big building, having to carry heavy backpacks, and the predictable repetition of early instruction.

And despite my directions, some kids came up with their own rating system. "It's bread!" wrote one. 

"What's your scale?" I asked, confused. "The food pyramid?"

"I love bread!" she replied, "and school is great so far.

One of her classmates agreed, refusing to give any other rating than Wunderbar! "It's German," he confided.

"Ja, Ich weiß," I told him. "Ich weiß."

And So I Will

When I first started teaching, the preservice week was four days, Monday through Thursday, then there were four days off before the students began on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Then, it was nearly impossible for me to enjoy the time off because I was so anxious about the time on coming up. All I really anted was to go to school.

After a while, schedules changed, and I did, too, and a long weekend was a long weekend, but this year? Although I sure do appreciate the extended holiday weekend we are coming off of, especially because five days in a row is a luxury usually reserved for the big three: Thanksgiving, Winter, and Spring Break, here in Year 29 I'm feeling a little return-to-school anxiety.

Fortunately, I learned the best cure for that in Year 1:

Get your ass back to school.

Runner Up

I gasped as two dark figures dashed furtively across the trail not 50 feet ahead of us. We were taking advantage of this fine fall day by walking the several miles of wooded trails at Teddy Roosevelt Island, just across the river from our nation's capital. In the many years we have been visiting this national memorial, we have seen egrets and herons and turtles and deer and even a beaver and eagle or two, but never 

a wild turkey!

Until today.

Buon Appetito

 "Did you get squash blossoms?" our neighbor asked when we rejoined our group at the farmer's market.

"Yep!" I answered.

"I did too," she told me, "but they were definitely an impulse buy. How are you going to make them?"

"Stuffed and fried," I said. "What about you?"

"With ricotta?" she asked.

I nodded.

"That's what I was thinking, too" she replied, "but..." She shrugged. "The last time I bought them they went bad."

"Frying them can be involved,' I said, "but they're good on pizza or sautéed with pasta, too."

"But frying them seems really appealing," she sighed.

This evening, as I was stirring together ricotta, locatelli, burrata, and fresh basil, I asked Heidi to text our neighbor and let her know that I had filling and hot oil ready if she wanted to bring over her blossoms, because making 12 is no harder than making six.